Islam and Muslims in Australia: Settlement, Integration, Shariah, Education and Terrorism

By Jan A Ali

Islam has long been a part of the multicultural landscape of major urban centres in Australia and encompasses a great diversity of theological, jurisprudential and cultural practices. Despite this, in popular discourse, media presentations, and political debates Muslims are represented as a homogeneous group. This timely book examines the growing presence of Islam and Muslims in Australia and how it is transforming, and transformed by, social, cultural and religious spaces.

Employing critical analysis and macrosociology, Islam and Muslims in Australia provides valuable insights into this growth and development and illuminates how socio-cultural, economic, and political processes maintain and manage the ways Australian Muslims build their religious lives and identities and engage in the wider world, while facing the inevitable effects of modernity. This book argues that Islam in different parts of the world as well as in Australia is more than just a religion, a cultural system or a social structure, but is a complex composite of diverse institutional processes and functions, social routines and norms, and sacred rituals and practices responsible for shaping the lives of Muslims.

This volume focuses on five broad areas of sociological analysis namely Muslim settlement, Muslim integration, shari’ah, Muslim education, and global terrorism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780522877083

Book preview

In this book, Dr Ali provides an intelligent and compelling sociological narrative of the nature of Islam and the cultural character of Muslims in Australia. In doing so, he examines key topics under broad headings of settlement, integration, sharia, education and terrorism and looks at how these phenomena operate in the broader structure of Australian society. His deep understanding of the Australian Muslim community, coupled with the skills of an astute academic, makes this book accessible to all Australians—academics and the general public alike. It is a must-read for anyone wanting a concise, clear and articulate account of Islam and Muslims in the Australian context, with a deep awareness of contemporary realities, and will go a long way towards providing a platform for constructive discussion on the issues raised within it.

PROFESSOR MOHAMAD ABDALLA AM

Jan Ali has masterfully crafted tapestry of the Muslim story in Australia. As an artisan, he skillfully weaves information on Muslim immigration into Australia, their assertion of identity within the multicultural context of the country, de-ethnicisation of Islam among the second generation of Muslims, organizational structures, legal and educational landscape and experiences of social exclusion against the backdrop of the focus on terrorism in a globalized world. A picture emerges of a community that has been a part of the Australian history predating European settlement, but one that can also be best understood as a set of communities with differing ethnicities, interpretational preferences, and sense of inclusion as citizens. Drawing upon shades of experiences in other western liberal democracies, he reminds us that the Muslim story in Australia is both similar and different to what is happening elsewhere. A great source of information for academics, students and policy makers.

PROFESSOR SAMINA YASMEEN AM

Islam and Muslims in Australia

Settlement, Integration, Sharia, Education and Terrorism

Jan A Ali

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton,Victoria 3053, Australia

[e-mail]

www.mup.com.au

First published 2020

Text © Jan A Ali, 2020

Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2020

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Series: Islamic Studies Series

Series Editor: Shahram Akbarzadeh

Text design and typesetting by J & M Typesetting

Cover design by Phil Campbell

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

9780522877304 (hardback)

9780522877076 (paperback)

9780522877083 (ebook)

For my beloved family:

Amirah Ali, Amaan Ali, Aneeqah Ali and Aqilah Ali

Contents

Foreword by Michael Humphrey

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1: Muslim settlement, immigration, and the emergence of Islam in Australia

1History of Muslim settlement in Australia

2Immigration, multiculturalism and Muslim migrants

3Muslim community and organisational development and the institutionalisation of Islam

Part 2: Muslim exclusion and inclusion in Australia

4Muslim experience of social exclusion in Australia

5The need for Muslim social inclusion

Part 3: Sharia and Muslim clergy in Australia

6The formal accommodation of sharia in Australia

7The role of Muslim clergy in Australia

Part 4: Islamic education in Australia

8Origins and development of Muslim schools

9Islamic studies in Australia

Part 5: Australia in the era of global terrorism

10 Radicalised Muslim ‘Other’ and countering violent extremism

11 Securitised Muslims and Islam in Australia

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Foreword

Islam and Muslims in Australia combines a sociological account of Muslim immigration, settlement and community development in Australia with an account of the Muslim lived experience of the migration process. The book aims to educate people about Islam as a religion and its social and cultural presence in Australia, and about the Muslim experience of migration and the conditionality of citizenship.

The author, Dr Jan Ali, is uniquely placed to write this book as a well regarded sociologist working at Western Sydney University teaching Islamic Studies, as a respected and very engaged member of the Muslim community contributing to welfare and education, as a consultant to different government agencies on the needs of the community, and as a Muslim migrant himself, originally from Fiji.

I first met Jan as a young undergraduate when I taught at the University of Western Sydney in the 1980s. I later got to know him much better as his PhD supervisor at the University of New South Wales when he worked on the Tablighi Jama’at movement. This book is very much a synthesis of his different roles and experiences and knowledge gained as an academic sociologist, an educator of Islam and Islamic Studies, a religious person deeply concerned with the wellbeing of his community, and a citizen concerned about social justice and equality in Australia. A major theme running through the book is for social inclusion to allow Muslims in Australia to realise their full potential as citizens in a multicultural society.

The importance and enduring value of this book is as a historical document that reflects on the life of Muslim communities in Australia and the debates and issues that are shaping them in the early twenty-first century.

Jan provides the essential ‘Introduction to Islam’ with a brief summary of Islam’s main tenets of faith, its historical origins and the evolution of its main sects. These are not just matters of cultural and historical interest but bear directly upon the everyday lives of Muslims today, especially those living in the West, with their concerns about the continuity—if not cultural survival—of social and cultural traditions in non-Muslim secular societies. While all Muslims collectively belong to the one ummah (community of believers) in Australia, they constitute a small community (representing less than 3 per cent of the Australian population) whose members come from diverse religious, cultural and linguistic backgrounds generated by international migration.

Their diversity presents practical problems for them to be able to reach a consensus on how to live as a religiously observant Muslim in Australia. Who has religious authority in Australia? What credentials are necessary to become an imam and who should accredit them? Who has the religious authority to interpret Islamic law in Australia, and what does such a diverse group of Muslims understand as sharia?

Jan engages in polemical debate about the logic of secular society that accepts cultural pluralism but in practice puts limits on cultural autonomy. He reasons that if sharia provides a code for a proper Islamic life, then why can’t it be recognised in law? But, as Charles Taylor notes, there are (at least) three different kinds of secularism: a French version of laicité, where religion is strictly a private matter removed from the public sphere; the secularism produced by a population increasingly disinterested in religion even though the state may support religion; and the secularism where religion enters the public sphere but is just one voice among many—the Australian model. Jan’s examination of Islamic education and Islamic schools highlights the Australian approach to religious pluralism. Independent schools, including Muslim schools, can be established but only under strict guidelines and curriculum requirements laid down by the state.

A major theme running through the book is the issue of discrimination against Muslims in Australia based on misinformed perspectives about the cultural incompatibility of Islamic beliefs and practices, or about the political transformation of all Muslims into a suspect category as a result of the international politicisation of Islam and Islamic terrorism that has turned Muslims into a suspect category. Jan’s response to discrimination against Muslims in Australia is that the construction of Islam as culturally incompatible and the complaint that Muslims don’t integrate are, from the Muslim perspective, expressions of their experience of social exclusion. He argues that Muslims are already integrated: they just need to be recognised as belonging. Over the past twenty years, the issue that has impacted so negatively on Muslim immigrant communities is radicalisation and the security threat of political violence in Australia. Jan explores in depth the impact of the state’s counterterrorism policies, the impact of securitisation and the collective stigmatisation of Muslims, and the problems arising from framing terrorist acts as being attributable to individual vulnerability to radicalisation. Instead of reassuring Muslim communities about their status as valued members of society who are also shocked at the idea of such violence, state securitisation has produced further alienation and social exclusion.

Jan seeks to enter into a dialogue about many issues facing Islam and Australian Muslims from many different constituencies. He invites all Australians to think critically about the nature of our secular society and the acceptance of cultural difference that it implies, and to recognise the injustice of state policies that essentialise ethnicity and stigmatise the whole Muslim community. He addresses government agencies and politicians, asking them to understand the national implications of securitisation and counter-radicalisation as governance strategies for multiculturalism and citizenship. He invites Australian Muslims to reflect sociologically on the challenges of their predicament as a culturally and religiously diverse community created by international migration and to search for ways to achieve greater unity to become more active and influential voices in twenty-first century Australia. He encourages the Muslim clergy to play a more active and engaged leadership role in representing their communities in mainstream Australian political and social life.

Jan concludes his book by observing that Muslim communities are now an integral part of multicultural Australian society: they are here to stay. He argues that Australians must embrace the reality of our multicultural diversity and work at making sure everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. I fully endorse his vision.

Michael Humphrey

Professor Emeritus in Sociology

The University of Sydney

14 September 2020

Abbreviations

Introduction

Despite the long—if disjointed—history of Muslims in Australia, there is still a lack of sophistication in the mainstream understanding of both Islam and Muslims, leading to superficial and often harmful representations in the largely non-Muslim media. This book explores the nature of Islam and the cultural character of Muslims in Australia, and examines how certain processes, institutions and phenomena operate in the broader structure of Australian society.

Viewed in the context of the ‘problem’ of multiculturalism for nationstate sovereignty in a post–September 11 world, Islam has come to exist as a diasporic culture and Muslims as an immigrant community that has to cope with various secular sociopolitical environments of Australian multiculturalism. In Australian multiculturalism, which promotes cultural assimilation as the long-term objective of nation-building, Muslims find themselves to be a minority group. Challenged by this, they are forced to negotiate and innovate to sustain their religious identity in the context of modernisation and assimilation in liberal Australian multiculturalism. I examine these in the context of settlement challenges Muslims face, and look at whether these challenges have been met by the state. Muslims, like any migrant group, have various needs—some short-term, such as settlement assistance and services upon arrival; and some long-term, such as job security so they can be included in Australia’s project of nation-building and cultural diversity. An understanding of the fundamentals of Islam and its value system for adherents in the Australian media and the education system, for instance, would also prove beneficial for this Australian project.

In this book, selected aspects of Islam and Muslims in Australia are considered under the broad headings of settlement, integration, sharia, education and terrorism. I open with a brief account of the earliest recorded Muslim presence in Australia: the contacts between Macassan Muslim fishers and Indigenous Australians dating back to the fourteenth century, when the two groups were engaged in a trade of trepang (sea cucumbers), followed by the cameleers commonly called the ‘Ghans’ (shortened from Afghans) who were instrumental in the exploration of the Australian deserts, establishment of trade and communication routes, and industrialisation of Australia’s interior in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following this came the post–World War II waves of migration, when the Muslim population started to show real signs of growth and the institutionalisation of Islam in Australia began to occur.

Although there was clear evidence of permanency of Muslim presence in Australia in the Afghan settlements in the nineteenth century when some camel drivers married Indigenous women, started families and built mosques, it was only after the end of World War II that more formal Muslim institutions and a visible Muslim presence started to occur. This history allows us to interpret and analyse the early Muslim presence and compare it with contemporary Muslim reality, including relations or lack thereof between Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia.

Islam is a monotheistic, prophetic, egalitarian, salvational and universal religion teaching that there is only one god, called in Arabic ‘Allah’. For theologians, Islam is a religion and social system and a complete way of life. Etymologically speaking, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root S-L-M, or in Arabic Seen, Laam, Meem. This forms a large group of words mainly relating to concepts of wholeness, safeness and peace. In Arabic, Islam means ‘complete surrender or submission to Allah’. Those who submit to Allah are called Muslim.

Established by the Prophet Mohammed in 610 CE in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam quickly spread to Iberia in the west and the Indus River in the east. Within a century of the death of the Prophet in 632 CE, Muslims had brought a large part of the world, from Spain across Central Asia to India, under a new Arab Muslim empire. The period of Islamic conquests and empire-building marks the initial phase of the expansion of the religion of Islam. Due to the vast range of racial and cultural backgrounds of the people who embraced Islam, not only in the early periods of expansion but even as recently as the last century, important internal differences resulted.

Despite the idea of a unified and consolidated community as taught by the Prophet Mohammed, deep differences arose within the Muslim community shortly after his death. The first major schism in Islam, between the Sunnis, or ‘people of traditions’, and the Shi’ites, or ‘followers of Ali’ (the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law), was initially politically motivated over the question of leadership, but over time theological differences developed. Rebellion broke out during the reign of Ali and some of his supporters split, forming a separate group that became known as the Kharijites. In response the Murjites (‘those who postpone’) emerged, advocating the idea of deferring judgement of other people’s beliefs. As a result of translations of Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic during the eighth and ninth centuries, a movement of rational theology emerged whose representatives are called the Mu‘tazilites (literally ‘those who stand apart’). They were countered by Ash‘arites, who developed a system of Islamic religious thought based on both reason and revelation.

Withstanding these internal differences, Islamic practices based on the scripture remained prominent among Muslims. Wherever Islam went, the process of Islamisation of culture followed. Islamisation entailed bringing rituals and practices under the influence of Islam and its law, or reforming them according to Islamic creed. Despite this process, Islam was never the sole source of Muslim identity: other forms of community and community practices continued in the Muslim world. Naturalisation of some aspects of Islam and Islamisation of local culture proceeded simultaneously to conform to local customs.

All these and many other sociocultural and political factors have made Islam an extremely heterogeneous religion. However, the rise of Islamism and simplistic media depictions of Islam and Muslims in the past several decades have distorted the understanding of Islamic history and culture in the West, including Australia. At worst, stereotypes portray Islam as a homogeneous, backward, hyper-patriarchal and fanatical religion and Muslim people as uncivilised, intolerant, uncooperative and violent. But the fact is that Islam encompasses a long history of intellectual tradition and a great diversity of theological, jurisprudential and puritanical practices, and Muslims embody a great deal of variation within and between cultural traditions.

If this is the case—that is, heterogeneity is the nature of Islam and Muslims in Australia—then what is Islam, and who is a Muslim exactly? If Islamic identity can be eclipsed by other types of group allegiance, is it a valuable entity for investigation?

In this book, Islam is understood to be a way of life in which all human energy and focus is directed at a single God—Allah—and anyone who subscribes to this doctrine and attests in some form to sociocultural and spiritual affiliation with Islam is considered to be Muslim. Whether the individual practises their faith or not, insofar as they unequivocally accept the fundamental tenets of Islam no matter how differently they are interpreted, they are Muslim. A Muslim who selectively practises their faith or doesn’t practise it at all but still believes in the unity of God and identifies with Islam as a part of their cultural heritage is a ‘faithful’. There exists a bond between Muslims who selectively practise their faith or don’t practise it, and those who practise Islam regularly. This makes Muslim identity a valuable basis for analysis regarding the needs and concerns of over 600,000 Muslim people who call Australia home.

The contention of this book is that Islam in different parts of the world, including in Australia, is more than just a religion, a cultural system or a social structure: it is existentially a complex composite of diverse institutional processes and functions, social routines and norms, and sacred rituals and practices responsible for shaping the lives of Muslims. Furthermore, Muslims are more than a product of their religion. While there are some cultural norms common to most Muslim societies and periods that originate from religion and common historical locus, to assume that the ideas and practices embodied in these norms—such as the clergy class—are sociopolitically constant is far from correct. In fact, they are assigned diverse meanings and roles by sociopolitical context. The large variety of social and political forms to be found historically and in the present time cannot be explained as differences in a common model of an ideal Muslim society. They are explicable only in terms of the normal practice of social and political examination that considers change as a constant in all societies.

Thus, Islam is not a unified or monolithic religion. This has been abundantly demonstrated in numerous sociological studies of Islam and Muslims.¹ Discussing Islam particularly in the contemporary context, Gabriele Marranci states that ‘Hence, since interpretations are multiple, the personal embodiments of Islam are likewise multiple. It is not Islam that shapes Muslims, but rather Muslims who, through discourses, practices, beliefs and actions, shape Islam in different times and spaces.’²

Language, culture, tradition, and the political and social contexts in different geographical locations certainly play an important role in making Islam eclectic. Also important are the numerous sectarian groups, theological clusters and legal schools and their interpretations, which add to Islam’s further eclecticism. Islam is a religion based on sharia (Islamic law) but variations in interpretation of the law abound, contributing to both local and regional differences in what constitutes ‘Islamic’ practices.

It is not practically possible to discuss all the very complex aspects of Islam and Muslims in a single volume, and this certainly also holds true for Islam and Muslims in Australia. In this book, five broad aspects of Islam and Muslims in Australia are discussed: settlement, integration, sharia, education and terrorism. These subject areas have been chosen because they are the ones in which Muslims struggle the most and the ones that have been under some academic investigation.³ This volume adds to that investigation, but from a rarely used sociological perspective.

Islam and Muslims in Australia are not being adequately sociologically studied, although they have become permanent features of the society. This book is an attempt to make a contribution to such a gap in the literature about Islam and Muslims in Australia. Thus, the overarching focus of the book is to explore the nature of Islam and the cultural character of Muslims and examine how certain processes, institutions and phenomena operate in conjunction with or in isolation from one another in the broader structure of Australian society.

Settling in a new country is never an easy process. Settlement in Australia for Muslims has been an ongoing critical problem, raising questions about state support during the settlement process. Like any ethnocultural group, Muslims require both short-term and long-term state support during their initial settlement so they can easily integrate into the society and start making contributions to Australia’s project of nation-building and cultural diversity. For the government, the media and the Australian community at large to gain awareness of the basic creed of Islam and its value system can be particularly productive in terms of developing greater levels of tolerance towards Muslims, in turn showing Australia’s embrace of cultural diversity.

Integration or inclusion faced by Australian Muslims is another ongoing major issue. In Australian immigration history, the question of who should be permitted to settle here has been directly associated with the idea of successful assimilation or integration. Australian immigration until the 1970s was essentially about maintaining the white monocultural national identity through a practice of selective immigration. This, however, changed in 1972 with the official abandonment of the ‘White Australia policy’, which had its origins in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. It was replaced with multiculturalism as the dominant force in immigration and settlement policy.

Despite Australia being a multicultural and multi-faith society and Muslims having a long historical presence in the country, Muslim inclusion in mainstream society remains dubious. Often Muslims are labelled as the ‘Other’ with allusions to them not being part of the broader society. The focus on Muslims since the events of 11 September 2001 has intensified, with counter-terrorism legislation increasing the tendency of ‘othering’ Muslims. Research⁴ shows that Australian Muslims experience unequal access to the economy and that their participation in it is often restricted directly or indirectly, and that this has the potential to extend to future generations of Muslims. In light of this, a question arises: what is the place of Islam and Muslims in Australia? Muslim experiences need to be understood in the context of the dynamics and complexities of Muslim and non-Muslim relations.

Islam is a complete way of life with its own sharia (legal system). Some minor Australian political parties, often with conservative views, and shock jocks, journalists with biases, and even academics with certain agendas, have argued that Muslim experience of social exclusion or lack of integration is a direct or indirect consequence of Muslims following sharia, which is purported to be incompatible with Australia’s common law system. There is evidence in Australia of a movement towards right-wing politics that demands limits on the implementation of sharia, advocating restrictions on public veiling by Muslim women, curbing of mosque-building and private Muslim schools, halting halal certification, and imposing firmer restrictions on Muslim immigration. These political attitudes have been prevalent for some time; however, the debate about sharia has only recently surfaced in the public arena. It has centred on attempts to control the spread of sharia. Muslims in Australia are faced with the challenging task of proving the compatibility of sharia with the Australian way of life.

These developments raise another important question: has Australia been successful in accepting Muslims as valuable citizens and an important and integral part of the civil society? The popular responses suggest the existence of fear and resentment towards Islam and Muslims. Muslim practice of sharia and calls for formalisation of sharia in Australia are not a call for legislating sharia but a call for official recognition of it, and should not be a basis for fear or a threat.

Like Muslims elsewhere, Muslim religious experience and spirituality in Australia are a product of Islamic education. Islamic education influences the formation of Muslims’ spirituality, prepares them for better understanding of knowledge, guides them in the provision of religious services and teaching, and trains them in preserving religious heritage. In a country like Australia, which is characteristically secular, this can be a real challenge for Muslims. Muslim schools are venues where these principles are cultivated. Although other Muslim teaching organisations exist in Australia, Muslim schools are important spaces with which the state and the broader Muslim community closely interact. The schools foster dynamic intellectual engagement with modern living, but can also become places of corporate and entrepreneurial activities. In addition, Islamic education is becoming popular in Australian universities. Unlike Muslim schools, organisations, colleges and institutes that take an essentially theological approach to religious education, Islamic education in Australian academia is taught according to the principles of social science, and students are immersed in a dynamic intellectual engagement with modern education. This is worthy of investigation.

Responses to global terrorism pose a major challenge to Muslims, particularly those living in the West. Research reveals that in the post-9/11 era, prejudice and discrimination against Muslims have increased dramatically and are pervasive in Western societies.⁵ In response to global terrorism, almost all Western countries, including Australia, have developed counterterrorism strategies, policies and laws, and it is important to understand the impact of these on community cohesion, equality and human rights. Research shows that these measures are increasingly and indiscriminately targeting Muslims and alienating them.⁶ The inability of the internal mechanisms of these measures to clearly differentiate violent extremist Muslims from ordinary Muslims results in the construction of all Australian Muslims as violent extremists, and exacerbates their experiences of social exclusion. Radical fundamentalism, Islam and terrorism are often lumped together and equated with political Islam in Australian political discussion, journalism and mainstream discourse. Consequently, Muslim communities encounter xenophobia and racism and come under intense official scrutiny by government agencies.

In many Muslim societies a counterculture exists alongside cultural traditions, focused on replacing culturally specific practices with those based on Islamic scripture. This dichotomy distinguishes accretional Islam from pristine or scriptural Islam. The latter is claimed to be timeless Islam, which is puritanical and transnational, transcending ethno-parochial and national boundaries and forming the foundation for an ideal ummah (community of believers).

The distinction between the two forms of Islam has important implications. Accretional Islam concentrates on reproducing prevailing social relations and practices, while pristine or scriptural Islam has a rigid quality instructing Muslims on the ‘proper’ (in line with Qur’anic teachings) way of conducting themselves. Take, for instance, Australia, where Muslims largely live in urban